Jim DeMint Leaving The Senate To Head Heritage Foundation

South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina's junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million.

Sen. DeMint's departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. In that year, both Mr. DeMint's replacement and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be running for reelection in South Carolina.

In a lot of ways it makes sense. He's not a team player and in Congress in general and the Senate in particular, that's the name of the game (well, if you're a conservative. Liberal Republicans can go rogue whenever they want with out paying a price. In fact they are often rewarded for it by leadership).

In light of the direction of the country, I think conservatives need to reclaim their own identity and seperate themselves from Republicans.

The fact is conservatives overestimate their popularity. We are far more impressed with ourselves than anyone else is. We think we took over the GOP, the fact is the GOP just kisses our ass every now and then.

We as conservatives should go back to being an intellectual movement and leave the elections to the Republicans. We're not as good at them as we think we are.

UPDATE: Nikki Haley appoints a temporary replacement who will have to run in the next general election (2014 I guess). Lindsay Graham is also up in 2014, so Demint's leaving probably kills any chance of getting Graham out.